Amnesia postmortem on the Frictional Games Website reflecting on the first week of availability of the survival horror game from the creators of the Penumbra series (thanks joao). The post outlines a good news/bad news situation. The good news is that, as is reflected by comments in the forums here, the game has been very well received, both by critics, and by gamers, as reviews from both have even exceeded their optimistic expectations. The bad news is that sales of the game are trailing a little below the level they need to remain in business, expressing concern that a day 0 pirate version of the game was available 24 hours before its retail release, as apparently some unscrupulous website leaked their review copy. Here's part of their assessment of this situation: "This is of course not all the income we will make from the game, but is still a bit discouraging when comparing to recent XBLA releases and similar. So why is [sic] not sales [sic] higher? Piracy? People waiting for future massive discounted sales? Game too scary / niched? Right now we have not got a clue, but hopefully it will become clearer further on." Here's their conclusion:

On almost all fronts, we area extremely pleased with this release. It has in many ways exceeded our expectations and it makes all the hard work, pay cuts, etc worth it in the end.

The most distressing thing is the sales though. Even though we are far from complaining, it feels like we do not have the financial security we would like to have, to truly be able to focus on making the best game possible. So what should we do? The things we have discussed include: Increase the cost of the game, doing a console port instead of Linux/Mac, do a less niche title and more. Now is too soon to make a decision though and we have to see how the coming weeks and months go.

Finally, I know I say this a lot but we truly mean it: Thanks to all who have supported us by buying the game, spreading the word, and what not. We hope you all will continue supporting us in the future as well! All of Frictional Games sends their finest regards and thanks for this support!

Back on topic. I can respect that Amnesia isn't your genre, I wasn't able to convince most of my friends to buy it either (which is usually easy for me). But it just baffles me that you think opening the doors is difficult or unintuitive. I think you need to turn your sensitivity up maybe or practice the motion. I don't really even hold the mouse button down the whole time, it's more of a flick of the wrist and closing is just a right click to slam.

Perceived difficulty and lack of intuitiveness can be chalked up to opinion but claiming that it's useless is just wrong as others have pointed out. Okay okay, you said it might be useless

I'm in a similar boat with just too much digital entertainment. On my plate is Mafia 2, Amnesia, Civ 5, Battlestar Galactica (finally watching and loving this), Boardwalk Empire, Always Sunny, missed Futurama eps, Weeds, unfinished Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2, and of course the Daily Show. Plus like 6 weddings between now and spring. And I worked 12 hours today. Good thing I don't have to take care of a home or lawn.